Chapter Nineteen

"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."

William Shakespeare

Sara stared at the man sleeping beside her. He hadn't moved when she'd crept from the bed to use the privy and retrieve a bladder of drink. She was back with him, naked under the blanket, and let her fingers slide along her own form.

It was the same body she'd had since she'd become a woman, but somehow it felt more sensitive, as if it craved more nibbles and heated kisses. No wonder the maids at Dunscaith talked nonstop about passion.

The shadows retreated from the pre-dawn light, and she could make out more of Rory's features. He breathed evenly, but his brow pinched as if he were dreaming of misadventure instead of tupping her. It didn't mar his handsome face, though. Watching his parted lips made her remember where he'd put them on her, how they'd driven her wild with lust, kissing and licking and nibbling her flesh.

She cupped and squeezed her breast, gently pinching her own nipple as she watched Rory sleep. He faced her with one arm raised over his head, the large muscles in his bicep relaxed. He must train daily to keep his body ready for war. He was the Lion of Skye, renowned for his battle fortitude. The small nicks along his broad chest gave testament that he'd seen many battles, probably half of them against the Macdonald Clan.

I made a vow. What type of vow would stop him from doing what he did with her last night? He was no priest. He wasn't married to someone else. When she'd asked the kitchen maids at Dunvegan about Rory, they hadn't said he was celibate. Rory MacLeod was more than able to bring molten pleasure to a woman.

Sara's legs shifted at the ache building once again, and she reached down under the blanket to touch her sensitive spot. She wasn't ashamed of feeling passion. Aunt Morag had told her about the pleasures of the flesh years ago. Morag told her to find the spots on her body that felt good and kindled passion. They were built into a woman to compensate for monthly bleeding and the pains of childbirth. Apparently, Rory knew all about these pleasure spots, too.

Sara continued to touch herself, and her blood quickened. Her gaze roamed over Rory's muscular chest, light brown and blond hair lying across it so different from her smooth skin. Rory MacLeod was all man, sturdy, powerful, and built to protect. Built to love a woman. Built to love me.

She tugged gently at the blanket, releasing her breasts from the top to lie along the edge. She continued the circular rub between her legs, feeling the restless energy stoke higher. Her lips parted with her breathing. Would she bring herself to her release right there before him? The thought was scandalous, which made it even more thrilling.

Rory's breathing changed, and his lips closed, opening again as his eyelids rose. He stared at her face, and then his gaze dropped to her breasts. The nipples were hard, and Sara imagined him taking one rosy peak into his mouth.

"Sara?" he said, rising onto one of his elbows. He ran a large hand through his hair, staring between her face and her perched breasts. "Ye are a bloody siren," he said, and his mouth relaxed into a smile.

"I'm either a siren or a phoenix," she said, her words light with teasing. "I can't be more than one mythical creature."

"Oh, I think ye're both." He leaned toward her, kissing her gently before backing up to study her eyes. "To make me forget about everything but this heat between us." His words were a mix of teasing and something a bit darker. Regret? It couldn't be regret.

She pushed the blanket down her body while she reclined on one side, keeping her back turned away from him. In the harsh light of day, she wasn't ready to let him see her back.

Sara set her hand on her breast, pinching the nipple before sliding serpentine down between them, over the gentle swell of her stomach to the curls between her legs. The flush of heat, from his gaze and from her audacity, infused her face, but she kept going. Parting her legs, she let him see her touch herself, knowing how damp and ready she was.

"I ache again for you."

"Good Lord." He moved toward her. The first touch of his hands on her skin made the fire within her surge. The blanket shifted down past his narrow hips, and his jack stood up proud and powerful like last night.

Her hand wrapped around it, and he groaned. The sound and sight sizzled through her, making her shiver in anticipation. She inhaled through her nose, pushing against his shoulder so that he sank back into the downy mattress, and she followed him. Straddling him brought the open crux of her legs in contact with the base of his shaft, him completely under her.

"Dia math," he rasped out, his hands clutching her hip bones as she sat upon him, her breasts revealed in the dawn, her hair draping over her shoulders. "Ye're wet already." His words caused more flames of pleasure reaching up within her, consuming her.

She moved against him. "I was thinking about this before you woke."

He reached forward to rub across her aching nub, and she lifted her breasts in her own hands, plucking at her nipples and feeling the zing stretch taut through her.

Sara leaned over him, letting her red-gold hair fall around his face like curtains. She flattened upon his hard body and kissed him, slanting her mouth against his. She rubbed him with her body below, and he growled into her mouth. His hands explored her back. Could he feel the slightly raised marks? Her birthmark didn't hurt. For a moment, she thought he was tracing it, but then his fingers slid lower to press into her bare arse, helping her find a rhythm against him. He wasn't inside her, but the pleasure built so fast from that simple act that all thoughts of what should happen gave way to primal instinct.

He reached around and below to touch her nether lips from behind. "Exquisite," Rory said against her ear as she slid back slightly onto his fingers, a gasp coming from her. "Ye are hot, lass, like molten honey."

She spread her legs so that her knees fell open on either side of him, letting him explore her. Rory drew one of her peaked breasts into his mouth. The suction tore through Sara, and she moaned.

"Aye, Sara," Rory said as he raised his lips back to hers. "Take yer pleasure." He helped her rock faster along him, his hands on her hips as she ground against him, building the intensity.

Sensation pulsed in Sara, rising higher. When he pulled the other nipple into his mouth, it was enough to make her soar over the edge, and she moaned deeply, her eyes squeezed shut as waves of hot pleasure snapped through her like wildfire.

He rolled them over, so she lay on her back. Rory's hands found her legs spread. He set her heels on each of his massive shoulders. Then he plunged inside her, stretching her, piercing her with sensation. Even her toes flexed where they bobbed in the air as they perched.

With a growl that filled the room, he pulled out and plunged back into her. "Oh God, yes!" Sara answered. Leaning over her, his arms flanking her face, Rory kissed her, their mouths wild against one another.

He set a fast and deep rhythm, and her limbs became weak as she met his thrusts. She was completely malleable to whatever he wanted to do to her. Trust , she realized, as she gave herself over to Rory completely. She trusted him.

"Yes," she breathed.

He increased the speed of his thrusts while he rubbed against her. All of Sara's senses were awash in Rory. His smell and heat and taste, the feel of his hands stroking her, and the sight of him laboring over her with beast-like intensity. It was savage and full of sizzle.

They grew higher, and he increased his pace. Shivers of lust and heat spiraled up and down inside Sara until she felt the edge once more.

"Oh God!" she yelled out, feeling her pleasure overtake her.

"Aye, lass," Rory rasped, joining her, filling her once again.

For long minutes they moved together, their bodies riding the waves of pleasure until they began to ebb. Sara tried to inhale, but the weight of Rory made it difficult. He must have noticed, because he wrapped his arms around her, capturing her legs with his to roll them over to their sides.

They lay face to face, legs entangled. Sara took a full breath, raising her hand to cup Rory's stubbled cheek. She looked directly into his eyes, studying the darker flecks in his golden-brown irises. She opened her damp lips to say something but couldn't think coherently yet.

He traced a finger along the curve of her hip and slid it around to her back. It took her a moment to realize he was stroking her mark. They stared at one another, and her heart picked up speed again.

"'Tis nothing," she said. "Something from birth. It doesn't spread to anyone like a sickness."

"Can I see?" He leaned forward and kissed her mouth before pulling back. "I've seen all other parts of ye."

Her cheeks warmed. "I…I would not sully the morning with my ugliness."

His brows pinched. "I have scars from being flayed open on my back, Sara. Do ye think less of me for them?"

"Of course not, but I don't want…I would not have our time ruined."

Only a man bound to ye by God through marriage would risk touching ye. Despite Morag's insistence that Sara's marks were not contagious and didn't make her ugly, somehow the words of her father resounded in Sara's mind. They plagued her along with his disgusted look when he'd made her mother strip her down as a child, inspecting her before he sought a marriage alliance with her.

Even though she'd been young, perhaps ten years old, her parents' argument about the red marks across her back had made it clear that she would never be desirable, making her useless to her father. He'd married her off to the MacLeods anyway, not caring how hurtful her new husband's rejection would be to her.

Sara's stomach tensed as he waited, but then he grinned. "No matter," he said, kissing her again. He held her face as he spoke. "I know every inch of ye is beautiful, Sara."

It wasn't true, but the man was too honorable to force her to show him. Weakness from relief made her sink into the pillows.

He rolled off his side of the bed, and she watched his muscles flex as he stretched. "I'll check on yer friend." He walked out of the room, and she was struck again at how beautiful his body was, even with the scars across his back. But they were different, inflicted upon him. She'd been born imperfect.

He came back in, his cock heavy but relaxed. "She has flown away."

"Probably once the storm let up," she said, pulling the blanket up over her body and pushing out of the rumpled nest they'd made on the floor. In the daylight now flooding the room, Sara felt vulnerable and hurried over to her discarded smock.

Rory looked out the window. "We should return to Morag to get Eleri."

"To intercept them so we can return together?"

He turned back to her, and she looked pointedly down his sculpted body. "Probably not like that."

He glanced down and then rubbed his temporarily sated cock, lifting his gaze to grin at her. "I'll get our clothes from below." His gaze dropped to the sheet she held around her.

A smear of red showed proof of her taken virginity. It was like a flag of surrender, surrender to lust and pleasure.

"I'm…" She began to apologize but stopped. "Should I wash them?"

He walked over to her and pulled her gently into his arms. "Ye honor me, Sara. Leave them here. I'll bring fresh linens another time. No one comes here but me."

She nodded against his chest and stood back. "We better go if we want to reach Morag's before they depart. She'll insist on cooking them food before they leave."

"Then we have a chance." Worry tightened his face. Perhaps she had indeed read regret in it before. He said he would never trust anyone, especially a Macdonald. There was some history she didn't know about. Had this woman, Madeline, made him distrust all women? As possible repercussions and reality broke through the haze of their time in each other's arms, Sara wondered if Rory would regret what they'd done. Sara would never, but she hadn't broken a vow.

…

Rory couldn't help but watch the way Sara's red-gold hair waved out behind her as she galloped up the path. 'Twas like a cloth of shining silk when the sun glinted upon it. And he'd stroked it, inhaled it, fisted it in his clenched hands as he lost himself in the heat of her body. Would she regret losing her maidenhead to him?

The thought soured the memory, and he pushed it aside. No man would set her aside because she wasn't a virgin, no man worthy of her. But that soured in his gut, too.

I'll marry her. The thought thundered through Rory. Bloody hell. If riding wasn't as easy to him as breathing, he might have fallen off Airgid. Marry his brother's almost-wife? A Macdonald that Jok and most of his clan worried was another Macdonald spy?

Jamie would rage against the idea of his brother marrying Sara, someone he considered a traitor. He'd remind Rory of his vow to his father, to his clan, that he would never endanger them again. Would marrying Sara endanger Clan MacLeod? Jamie had sought her hand.

Sara glanced back over her shoulder, and a smile played upon her lush lips. Och, but he wanted to kiss her again, kiss her right there on the moor. He would have kept her locked away in his tower all day, slowly convincing her to reveal her back to him. He'd felt the raised skin. It seemed serpentine across her lovely straight back. If it had been a scar, he'd find the bastard who'd hurt her. But it was a birthmark, one that she worried over. He'd watched the stiffness overtake her when they'd briefly talked about it.

Rory nudged Airgid to speed ahead, coming up next to Sara on the wide path. Together, they slowed to a walk as they saw Morag's cottage in the distance, smoke rising from the hole in the thatched roof. Jok's and Eleri's horses were tethered out front as if they were preparing to leave.

"What do we tell them?"

"That we took refuge at Dun Beag Broch with a phoenix and two horses who shite all over the inside. Between the smell, the flapping bird, and the wind and thunder coming through the broken windows, we got little sleep and need sustenance and comfortable beds."

She laughed. "Very unromantic."

"And ye slept in the bed and me on the floor in another room." He would cut off any of Jok's questions with the lie before he could utter them.

Sara nodded, exhaling. The lass didn't look like she liked to lie, either. She couldn't be one of Walter Macdonald's spies, no matter what blood rushed through her veins.

Dismounting, Rory strode around Airgid to lift Sara down. He knew she could dismount on her own, but he wanted to touch her again. His hands clasped around her waist, and it just felt…right.

She stared into his eyes as he lowered her before him. Hers were blue, the type of blue that reminded him of warm summer days with dark flecks in them like wildflower seeds.

"Rory!" Eleri's voice came from the opened door. "Thank God on high." She ran out of the door and into Rory as Sara backed up. "I feared…"

Rory hugged his sister, feeling the familiar hump in her back. His gaze dropped to the ground. The mud was churned up as if many horses had recently traipsed there. His body tensed. "Who came here?"

Jok strode outside, and Rory could see Morag sweeping her floor within. "Brodrick," Jok said, "and six MacLeods sent by Jamie." Jok's narrowed gaze fell on Sara.

"Why?" Sara asked, striding to the door. "Bloody hell!" she yelled. "They ransacked your home!"

Rory dropped his arms from Eleri but kept her hand as they hurried after Sara inside. It looked as if the storm, or at least the great wind, had torn through the two-room house, turning things upside down. Bedding, including the tick filled with straw, had been thrown upon the floor. Clothes were tossed from chests and the one wardrobe. Crates of unwashed wool were scattered about, their contents lying in puffs of dirty white and black across the crisscrossed ropes of the bed and the table in the back room.

Rory turned to Jok. "They were looking for something."

"Something small?" Sara asked, righting the wooden box that held Morag's paper, quill, and ink. A leather bag of lavender flowers was upturned, fragrant buds all over the table.

"The flag," Jok said.

"Wee shites, all of them," Morag muttered.

Sara looked between Jok and Morag. "What flag?"

"My flag," Eleri said, her cheeks red, "the one I guard in my room at Dunvegan."

Rory felt her words like a punch, all breath leaving him at once.

Eleri turned tear-filled eyes to Rory. "Someone took the Fairy Flag. Jamie says it was Sara."

Rory struggled to swallow. He felt Jok's gaze shredding along his chest as he stared at him and then at Sara as if he could tell that they'd tupped, more than tupped. They'd explored nearly every part of each other, teasing out moans and gasps and delicious, wicked words.

"Sara does not have the flag," Rory said, staring back at Jok.

Jok looked at Sara. "Did ye hide it somewhere? Around Dunvegan? Or hand it off to someone else?"

"Neither!" she blurted out, her eyes flashing with anger. "Why would I do that?"

"To give to yer father," Jok said.

"I despise my father."

"But ye love yer clan," Jok continued.

Memories of a similar inquisition ten years ago pulsed within Rory's mind with every hard thump of his heart. Dunvegan searched, the castle and the village turned upside down with it. The flag being found in a cottage Rory knew well, where he'd lain with his first woman, Madeline, the woman he thought loved him.

He remembered his father pointing a finger in the face of the woman who had taught a young Rory about physical pleasure. But Madeline Sinclair had been a Macdonald spy, her mission at Dunvegan to steal the Fairy Flag for Walter Macdonald.